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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28223280">Seeing Through the Novelty Glasses</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/velavelavela/pseuds/velavelavela'>velavelavela</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Friendship, New Year's Eve, Silly, justice for tahir khan!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:21:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>900</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28223280</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/velavelavela/pseuds/velavelavela</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“What, big guy, you’ve never seen New Year’s sunglasses?” Shelby teased.</p><p>the core four + nigel &amp; franz celebrate new year's!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>H.I.V.E. Gift Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Seeing Through the Novelty Glasses</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mal_not_Otto/gifts">Mal_not_Otto</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hi callum! happy holidays! hope you enjoyyyy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Christmas holiday at H.I.V.E. was odd but endearing. Of course, it wasn’t just Christmas-- there were celebrations for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, New Year’s, and generally any religious or cultural holiday. There was no leaving the school, as usual, but there were also no classes, as the fall semester ended with a jolt of finals and a celebration in the lobby of the dorms, complete with multicolored streamers hung by the weathered students, and sleepy eyes on the faces of the students who had pulled all-nighters in the library studying. The first winter holidays that the group experienced were sandwiched between crises and near-deaths and plant monsters and escape plans. They hadn’t had much time to relax, to drag the chairs around without regard for the flooring, to sit in a circle and talk through Christmas, then New Year’s Eve.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The school was generally bustling on December 31st, when curfew was lifted for the sake of lighthearted celebration. Someone had draped golden tassels over the doorways to the elevators, someone else had somehow procured plastic sunglasses with the year on them, leaving people somewhat blind in their peripheral vision and causing more than one hiccup in traversing the atrium.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tahir swung by, laughing at a joke over his shoulder and handing each of the six a pair of the atrocious glasses, wrapped in plastic. Wing took his with a hum of confusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What, big guy, you’ve never seen New Year’s sunglasses?” Shelby teased. Otto chuckled, nudging Wing, who was sitting on an armchair beside him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>have</span>
  </em>
  <span>. We just did not usually celebrate New Year’s Eve at home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, where the hell did they get these?” Laura asked, tearing a hole in the plastic with her fingernails, wrestling the glasses out of the packaging.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You reckon Nero sent a shroud out on a recovery mission? To grab the glasses? You know, they’re the most important piece of the New Year,” Shelby said, turning to Wing, “they’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>essential</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not thinking that I will be able to see in these,” Franz said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I’m not sure they’ll fit over my glasses,” Nigel frowned, but he had begun to try anyway, delicately squeezing the sunglasses over his regular ones, so as to not break anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Otto slid the glasses up his forehead and onto his head to hold his hair back. He looked more than a bit like a porcupine, and Laura couldn’t catch herself before losing it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Otto demanded, pulling a funny face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are looking quite like the hedgehog,” Franz said with a grin. Nigel laughed too, and then Shelby began to laugh at the sight of Laura copying Otto, her curly h</span>
  <span>air wild and unruly behind the glasses, and then Shelby slid</span>
  <em>
    <span> her</span>
  </em>
  <span> glasses up, and then Franz did, and finally Wing. A few heads turned from other parties of students around them, but there was no protest to the laughter. This was a holiday, after all, and everybody was having fun with their other Alpha friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I feel very left out,” Nigel said, but he continued to laugh along with the others.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nah, you can still do it!” Shelby stood up, taking the plastic wrapping that had been on her lap and plopping it on Nigel’s head as she moved in front of him. She took the glasses and placed them gently upon the plastic.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Wow, now I feel like the silly one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, we all look silly, trust me,” Otto grinned wide as Shelby plopped back into her chair, crossing her legs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Laura was about to speak when someone clinked a glass with a fork, and everyone hushed enough to hear Tahir Khan, standing on an ottoman above the rest of the students, as he made his announcement.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know we are all from different time zones and cultures,” he began, raising his voice so that even those who were hanging out on the upper floors’ balconies could hear, “but H.I.V.E. is about to hit midnight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“H.I.V.Emind,” he called, “take us away!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, Mr. Khan,” came the booming voice of H.I.V.E.mind through a speaker by the waterfall, “we have five minutes until midnight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A cheer broke out, and the group chimed in, Shelby wolf-whistling alongside. Everyone still had the glasses on their heads pushing back their hair, Nigel the plastic, and Laura had opened her blackbox to the front camera to see what she looked like, bursting into laughter again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe they were giddy with how late it was-- there was no doubt that Otto, Shelby, and Laura were night owls-- or maybe they were feeling the mob mentality of excitement, but for the next five minutes, it was a cycle of losing it and making funny faces and losing it again, up until H.I.V.E.mind made another announcement:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We will begin the countdown shortly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Someone shouted a long, “YEAAAAAH!!!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wow!” Franz said, pointing at the waterfall. There was now a projection of the last thirty seconds in huge, blue numbers on the water, H.I.V.E.mind’s doing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wing and Otto shifted quickly in their seats to see what was happening. As the last ten seconds began, everyone screamed the numbers:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And the room became pure chaos as everyone, including the group, celebrated the new year.</span>
</p>
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